Mississippi Voters Reject ‘Personhood’ Bid to Ban Abortion

Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Mississippi voters rejected a ballot
initiative that would have made the state the first in the U.S.
to ban abortion by declaring that life begins at conception.

The so-called personhood bid lost yesterday by a margin of
about 58 percent to 42 percent, with 96 percent of precincts
reporting, according to the Associated Press. The amendment to
the state constitution would have redefined the term “person”
to include “every human being from the moment of fertilization,
cloning or the equivalent thereof.”

The measure would have bestowed legal rights on fertilized
eggs and cut off access to abortion by equating it with murder,
making no exception for rape, incest or when a woman’s life is
in danger. Medical groups warned it might have criminalized
contraception and miscarriages while limiting access to
treatments such as in-vitro fertilization.

“To the degree there’s a national implication to this, I
think it will give pause to Republican legislators and perhaps
some Democrats who want to say I’m for this,” said John Bruce,
who teaches political science at the University of Mississippi.
“Now they’ve seen it fail in what has consistently been called
the most pro-life state in the country.

“If it can’t pass here, it’d be hard to pass anywhere,”
he said in a telephone interview from Oxford.

Unexpected Rejection

Activists on both sides had expected the amendment to pass
and spark years of litigation that would have stalled or
prevented its implementation. The issue divided anti-abortion
advocates. Catholic Bishop Joseph Latino of Jackson, for
example, had expressed concern that success in Mississippi might
backfire and lead to judicial reaffirmation of abortion rights.

Backers said they viewed it as a way to lead the U.S.
Supreme Court to revisit -- and reverse -- its 1973 Roe v. Wade
decision, which legalized abortion. They also said victory in
Mississippi would boost support for similar amendments in other
states and spur a push for federal legislative action.

Previous “personhood” bids in Congress have foundered
since the 1970s, and a similar amendment to Mississippi’s failed
in Colorado in 2010 and 2008.

In 2011, bills have been introduced in 18 states that
proposed establishing that life begins at conception or
fertilization, according to the New York-based Center for
Reproductive Rights. Campaigns to push for similar ballot
initiatives are under way in at least 14 states, according to
Keith Mason, president of Colorado-based Personhood USA, an
umbrella group that provides assistance to state affiliates
nationwide.

‘Sobering’ Outcome

“This doesn’t change what we are planning in other states,
but perhaps is sobering to those beginning these fights for the
preborn that victory may not come right away,” Mason said in an
e-mail.

The defeat in Mississippi “sends an unequivocal message to
proponents of these measures -- that the American people, no
matter the political perspective, will not stand for such
blatant attacks on the health and constitutionally protected
rights of women in this country,” Nancy Northup, president and
chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a
statement.

Mississippi’s amendment would have been even more extreme
than the abortion ban South Dakota’s legislature passed in 2006,
said Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst for the Guttmacher
Institute, a New York-based compiler of reproductive-health
data. That law, which voters overturned, made exceptions for the
life of the woman. Similar bans adopted in 1991 in Louisiana and
Utah, which included some exceptions for rape and incest, were
struck down in federal court, she said.

Proponent Groups

Though the word “abortion” didn’t appear on the ballot,
backers of the amendment argued that a vote against the
proposition would be a vote in favor of the procedure. Those
groups included Yes on 26, a local political-action committee
named for the initiative, Personhood USA, and the American
Family Association, a Tupelo-based evangelical Christian group.

Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide and Mississippians
for Healthy Families, which headed a coalition of local groups
opposed to the amendment, said the measure went too far.

Separately, Mississippians elected Republican Phil Bryant
to replace Governor Haley Barbour, who was prohibited from
running again because of term limits. Bryant, who’s served as
lieutenant governor since 2008, defeated Johnny DuPree, the
Democratic mayor of Hattiesburg.

Voters also passed an initiative requiring photo
identification to vote.